


Under the Cover of Night (Desperation)

by manboobs



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (kinda) sexytimes, I'm sorry ao3 tag wranglers, Ineffable Husbands through history, M/M, basically it's just them being very in love when nobody else is watching, someone tell me how to tag this properly, switching POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 14:06:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20437274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manboobs/pseuds/manboobs
Summary: There’s the agreement they talk about in hushed tone and almost reverence, the one mentioned with capitals: The Arrangement. Then there’s the other one.Aziraphale and Crowley through the centuries.I'm pretty sure this has been done thousands of times, but here's my take on it. :)





	Under the Cover of Night (Desperation)

**Author's Note:**

> me: I'm never writing sexytimes for Ineffable Husbands, they are celestial beings and the perfect excuse for all my ace headcanons!  
also me: *writes this in a fit of unbridled passion for the characters* ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> This is very imperfect and weirdly written but it is also full of love, and I hope you can feel that. :)  
Thank you for reading and stuff <3

There’s the agreement they talk about in hushed tone and almost reverence, the one mentioned with capitals: The Arrangement. Then there’s the other one.

The one that isn’t spoken of in the light of day, that is only murmured into the crook of a neck, kissed onto parted lips, etched onto skin by exploring fingers. The one that only exists when day has come and gone, in that pocket of night where reality’s edges blur and the entire world is asleep. When they are the only two people in the universe and Heaven and Hell are distant notions, splashes of color in the dreams of men. 

In these stolen moments, the second arrangement is inescapable, bigger than God herself. It is made of three simple words, words that were spun together for them since the Garden, the driving force of their existence:  _ you are mine _ .

::

It starts with furtive kisses in a dark alley in the bowels of Rome, drunk on Egyptian wine and oysters, wandering hands tangling in tunics and the taste of panting breaths on reckless lips. It's not quite desperation, not quite rapture. The discovery of something new, something inarticulate and ephemeral, a moment when the entire universe converges to this: Aziraphale sucking a mark on Crowley's neck. 

When he pulls back, the mark disappears instantly. His heart twinges in his chest. But Crowley's delicate hands are scrabbling at his waist, tugging, bringing him closer, closer, as close as their human-shaped bodies will bring them. There’s only an inkling of it then, in their touch, the barest hint of what’s to come. A declaration, an answer, a promise : _you are mine_.

:

"Did you like him?" Aziraphale whispers later, taking a stab in the literal dark as to whether his question will be answered or Crowley will pretend to be asleep.

"Who?" Crowley whispers back after a while, voice deep and smooth, a purr that runs a chill down Aziraphale's back. 

"Jesus." He swallows. "The son of- you know", he elaborates needlessly.

"Oh." Crowley shifts around, jostling them both. He turns on his side, facing Aziraphale in the dark. "Yeah, I guess. He was a nice, bright fellow."

Aziraphale fidgets. "Yes. Well, no. That's not what I-"

"I know what you mean, angel", Crowley cuts him off. "I did. Like him. He was my- friend." The sentence strangles itself in his throat.

Aziraphale reaches a tentative hand, blanketed by the dark. He lets it rest on Crowley's bare arm. Comfort, sympathy. Understanding. Crowley leans forward a little bit, settles more firmly into the angel's space. Aziraphale pretends not to look at him while he falls asleep.

::

Next time, they have to work for it, for the reward of their naked skin entwined, unbuckling, pulling and heaving robust pieces of armor over their heads, wrestling away heavy chainmail. The barn they took refuge in is cold, damp and smelly. Crowley buries his nose in the curls at the nape of Aziraphale's neck, flattened by his helmet. He stays there, whispers nonsense words endlessly as his hands explore the expanse of his chest, his stomach, lower.

Aziraphale makes a keening noise, keeps interrupting himself, muttering half-assed objections, trying for indignant and missing by a mile. "I can't believe", he starts, leaning into Crowley's touch, "working  _ together _ ", lacing their fingers, "Gabriel would go mad!"

Crowley exhales in a huff, doesn't stop the movement of his hand. "Please stop talking about Gabriel", he mutters into the angel's neck.

Aziraphale stops talking altogether, surrendering mind and body to Crowley's shaking, passionate hands. 

::

Crowley’s house is almost as filthy as the streets of London (live with the times and all that), but it has the merit of being a stone’s throw from the Globe, a quick refuge for impatient lovers in the throes of theatrical passion. The play had been a roaring success, not that Aziraphale had thought Crowley would go back on his word. He just hadn’t expected Shakespeare’s words, picked up by a captivated crowd, to be so- so-

It’s been hours now, the Globe lies dark and dormant through Crowley’s bedroom window, a heavy, dark fog spreading a hush over the city. A ghost town, it seems. And yet Aziraphale’s quite useless heart is beating double-time, can’t seem to stop its mad staccato.

He has Crowley pinned against a pillar, frantic hands fisted in his doublet, tongue delving into his mouth. Every time they do this, it's new, exciting, the planes of Crowley's body ever-changing but familiar in their otherness. Not that Aziraphale would know different: he's never done anything like this with anyone else.

The sounds coming out of Crowley’s mouth, hissing and panting, a litany of pleas and demands, tender and urgent, for his ears only. Aziraphale’s head is swimming, hazy with lust and full of Crowley’s noises, smells, touches all over and around him. He can’t quite remember the words, sucks on Crowley’s tongue hoping to find them at the tip of it. He’s pretty sure they go something like _ “I have not art to reckon my groans, but that I love thee best, oh, most best, believe it.” _

::

His lips are almost too sweet to be properly devoured, coated in caramel, tender and ripe like the apple he joyfully bit into earlier, between two servings of crepes. All innocent and angelic, like he didn’t know exactly what it did to Crowley, watching him bite into the forbidden fruit.

Afternoon melted into evening melted into night. The flash of the guillotine and the crowd’s cheers grew fainter and scarcer. The restaurant is deserted, owner and staff vanished into thin air. Or maybe they never existed, maybe the only thing that has ever been real is the heartbeat under his hand, the warm flesh that’s his to touch and lavish and worship. Forget the church, forget Hell, he’ll happily kneel for this religion.

They’re still giddy with it, the feeling of that narrow escape from discorporation, from being sliced apart without knowing if they’d ever find each other again. Their fingers reclaim what is rightfully theirs, a celebration of life in a place and a time claiming for blood, rolling with severed heads. Aziraphale gets his hands into Crowley’s hair, messes up his ridiculous hairdo. Crowley repays him in kind, ripping the distasteful revolutionary outfit from his body. Has there been anything else in the world but this? 

Crowley can’t imagine not being able to taste his skin, to slot their limbs together like a perfect puzzle. He wrenches Aziraphale’s hand from his hair, crushes their palms together, makes a silent promise to never let anything keep them apart. Neither Heaven nor Hell. Nothing.

::

For almost a century, there’s no arrangement at all. No favors, no last minute rescue, no cryptic message to decipher, no ducks to feed, no lunch, no dinner, no theater, not even a sign of either demon or angel during the Great War. No lingering touches, no feverish kisses, no heated whispers. Nothing. 

It’s the longest almost-century they’ve spent apart. There have been actual centuries, millennia in fact, where they haven’t been in contact. But this one: this one hurts. Every year, every day, every minute hurts. 

Crowley sleeps through most of it in abject loneliness. Aziraphale throws himself whole into the many unsavory twists and turns of literary modernism, tries as hard as he can to forget who he is : an angel, an immortal being whose sole purpose is to spread the word of the Almighty to the world below, a being of love. A being who’s desperately, ineffably in love with a demon who holds grudges for centuries at a time.

He goes through the same prayer wheel of remorse, rehearsed apologies, righteous anger, aborted plans of confrontation, unbearable longing. For weeks, years, decades.

And for almost a century, Aziraphale and Crowley don’t see each other at all.

::

When the skies quiet down and London sleeps, exhausted, among its ruins, Crowley traces the words into Aziraphale’s chest with a fervor speaking of lost time and missed opportunities. Each caress says “I’m sorry, I love you”, and the angel repays every favor with one of his own. He kisses Crowley senseless, can’t stop kissing him, pouring words he cannot say into his lips, hoping it’s enough for the demon to understand. “Thank you for saving me”, a kiss, “thank you for knowing me”, another, “thank you for loving me”, a third, swallowing Crowley’s answering whimper.

Lying on the ratty couch of the bookshop’s back room, discarded book bag at their feet, they eventually fall asleep together, limbs entwined tightly, not caring to examine where one ends and the other begins.

::

It’s their first time in the car, and Aziraphale doesn’t want to declare it’s going to be their last, but he kind of hopes so. The space is cramped and stuffy with their body heat, their limbs askew, position awkward. He feels terribly exposed like this. But he can’t deny Crowley, and he’s done denying himself. It’s been a few tortured days since he gave away the tartan thermos, and with it surrendered his fears to Crowley’s iron will. It’s been countless agonizing hours since “you go too fast for me” and the demon’s crestfallen face. Said face is currently shoved into his neck, sucking and biting and licking as Aziraphale holds on for dear life. 

Nothing has changed: he knows deep in the angelic fiber of his being that this shouldn’t exist. It’s an aberration, treason, unthinkable stupidity on both their part, this little agreement. Both of them, in fact. But his love for Crowley is written as deep into his fiber as his feeling of right and wrong, of Good and Bad. He can’t  _ be _ without it. He cannot breathe without him.

Nothing has changed, they shouldn’t do this, any of it. He’s not ready, will never be ready for the devotion Crowley pours into each kiss. But he can’t bear to be apart from him, he can’t bear not sliding his hand down the expanse of his back, the tingling feeling he gets when he touches where his dark wings begin, the all-encompassing want and understanding that comes with knowing every dark crevice of someone’s soul and being known right back.

::

He can’t help himself, looking at him. He’s constantly fighting a losing battle against his hands reaching out to touch him, to card themselves through his hair, to cup his cheek. He likes this hair the best, he admits to himself. 

Crowley’s not even trying to disguise the look he’s giving him, toeing a dangerous line, one they’ve been very careful to maintain untouched. But they’re on a clock now. Eleven years to the end of the world. Eleven years to kiss every inch of his skin, to take him apart and build him up again, to give back touch for touch, bite for bite. To whisper unknowable things to each other until the first light of dawn comes to collect them back to their respective side.

That doesn’t seem remotely like enough.

But they are well-versed in this dance of theirs. So Crowley stays on the couch, swirling dark wine in his glass, and Aziraphale sits with his back very straight on the chair facing him, and they wait. 

When the time has come and they’ve exceeded the limit of their centuries-tried patience, each touch is tinged with the realisation that they might actually lose this. Lose each other to a war that is not, has never been their own. That their base nature might not be to love, but to fight each other. It’s unthinkable, and Aziraphale takes his distress and his doubt and his fear and transforms them into the gentlest strokes, the softest kisses on Crowley’s eyelids, his forehead, his cheek, his ear, every part of him he can reach. 

Eleven years until it’s all over. Eleven years to tell him:  _ you are mine _ .

::

After Armageddon is averted, after Death and discorporation and horsemen on motorbikes, children on bicycles, flaming swords and Satan himself. After rubber ducks and Hellfire and dinner at the Ritz. As they’re walking back to the bookshop, enjoying the last perfect night of summer, Aziraphale reaches out blindly and grasps Crowley’s hand in his own, laces their fingers together. 

He doesn’t wait for the night to become darker, the streets to be deserted, he doesn’t pretend he’s drunk enough to forget what he’s doing. He doesn’t wait for his awareness of Above and Below to dim at the back of his mind. He doesn’t make excuses. 

Crowley squeezes his hand in return. He turns his head to look at him, finds him looking back. They share a private, elated, perfect smile.  _ You are mine _ , that smile says. And Aziraphale’s hands will keep saying it through the night, and Crowley’s lips will answer him every time. 

And maybe tomorrow, when he wakes Crowley from his slumber with a cup of tea and pastries from the bakery Aziraphale loves so much, maybe then he’ll find the courage to say it out loud.  _ You are mine. _

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: [innermanboobs](http://innermanboobs.tumblr.com)


End file.
